Ebusiness – From Presence to Transformation: A Data Architecture Journey

Behind every successful Ebusiness story is a Data Architecture story that often goes untold. This untold story is usually packed with the principles that most success stories are built upon. My story is about the five year evolution of Ebusiness at Air Products.

We’ll uncover many data management principles in the overview of our progress from establishing a web presence to deploying strategic applications supporting supply chain optimization. We’ll point out key architecture decisions made and their impact on reuse and extensibility.

We’ll visit the decision to migrate from an enterprise with 38 order entry systems to an enterprise supporting a growing 70% of our businesses on a single instance of SAP; focusing on how we leverage Ebusiness to drive SAP benefits.

To frame the discussion, we’ll also look at the genesis of DA involvement in our Ebusiness program and the strategies used to become key contributors to its success. The following topics will be explored in some detail:

• Award-winning B2Bi architecture – reuse of common XML & SAP interfaces
• User Self Service applications – flexible DB designs, data sharing, stewardship
• Web extension of SAP for external agents – process, standards, security, SOA
• Web based, real-time application access – customization, data sourcing, SOA
• Project Work Process – inclusion strategy for DA involvement